When I was a tot in Texas, letter writing always represented an ancient, almost mystical practice. It was something novelists, and thinkers, and the famous participated in. You could see them sometimes in plexiglass boxes at museums, but they were not something common to daily life. People wrote letters to the child they sponsored (but I believe used the term "adopted") across the three worlds. I remember constantly checking a book out of the library that had the addresses of companies that would send you free samples and stickers if you wrote to them. Thank you letters were to be written after every birthday and Christmas but I promise you I saw no magic there. But these felt like a watered down version. Real letter writing seemed powerful like another language. And it wasn't until I moved that I really tried my hand at it.